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ADDRESS 



DEMOCRATS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 



"A JACKSONIAN DEMOCRAT, 

(GEORGE SENNOTT.) 



BOSTON: 
JAMES O. BOYLE & CO. 

8 STATE STREET. 



Permit a Jacksonian democrat to rejoice with you at the triumph of 
good sense and good principles in our last Convention. It was slight, 
but it was decided. A division at a critical period was most skilfully 
and happily avoided. Resolutions were passed, not indeed so good as we 
hoped for, but much better than we expected. A list of unexceptionable 
candidates was unanimously and cordially adopted. A bitter, narrow- 
minded, selfish, and troublesome faction was forced, for once, to hear rea- 
son. And when the political head of my friend, Dr. Loring, was snapped 
off like the head of an onion, I gratefully acknowledged even that small 
favor. 

" Great Rantoul's ghost walks well avenged among us ! " 

The world does move after all ! And the Democratic party of Mas- 
achusetts, for the first time in thirty years, is turned in the direction of 
success. 

This Commonwealth is the centre of intellectual activity in America. 
It is the focus of American civilization. It should therefore be the source 
of Democratic ideas. In Massachusetts a man commonly begins life with 
little or no capital. He earns his own bread by his own labor. lie gains 
his credit by his own character. He forms his character by his own will. 
There is no career — there is no position in society or in the State which 
he may not hope to fill. At every step he is compelled to feel that he is 
never beyond the reach of his fdlow-citizens. But he is never in their 
power but by his own misdeeds. The movement of social life goes on by 



■5 4-' 



Democratic principles. The townships are the selected models of Dem- 
ocratical government, and even the churches are conducted according to 
democratical regulations. Universal intelligence — inexhaustible ener- 
gies of every kind — great material prosperity, enjoyed by unexampled 
multitudes — security not to be calculated upon anywhere else — associ- 
ated very curiously with an enterprise so daring that it touches the confines 
of the romantic — are the well-known fruits by which Democracy proclaims 
its presence to mankind. In all those fruits this Commonwealth may 
have equals, but it has no superior. Yet nowhere on this continent so 
much as in the sincerely and thoroughly Democratic Commonwealth of 
Massachusetts is the Democratic party so sincerely and so thoroughly 
despised ! 

There is a sufficient reason for this. The Democratic party deserve it. 
And to attempt to evade the charge by raving about " Massachusetts fa- 
naticism " is simply to earn more contempt by descending from explana- 
tion to abuse. 

And why ? Because we abandoned our principles to follow our leaders ! 
Because we bartei-ed our honor and our conscience for the votes of the 
Amalgamation States ! Because when South Carolina hated Freedom, 
and honestly proclaimed its hatred, we who hated slavery, meanly pretend- 
ed to like it. To please the planting interest we made ourselves odious 
at home. Think of a Democrat, the champion of the rights of man, cring- 
ing to his natural enemy, the slave-breeding Amalgamationist of the negro 
States, and all for a vote ! Think of the sense and the judgment of the 
men who advised him to do it ! Think of the keen, sagacious, intelligent 
voters of Massachusetts, before whose eyes this honorable performance has 
been going on for thirty years, and you will wonder with me, not that we 
have few voters here, but that we have any. 

The men whose want of judgment brought us so low, were strongly rep- 
resented in our convention and handsomely defeated. Their defeat, how- 
ever, only turns our faces in the right direction. Our noble old Demo- 
cratic party — the party of Jefferson and Livingston and Jackson — is 
exposed to-day to that kind of danger which threatens a man's business 
when unprincipled and irresponsible ex-partners steal the trade marks of 
the old firm and place them upon worthless or deleterious goods. So a 
few political sharpers are stealing our good name and tacking it on to their 
own malignant stupidities. From the People's High Court, the Conven- 
tion, we got a temporary injunction upon these gentlemen. Allow me in 
this paper to show cause why it should be made perpetual. 

It was our own pride and self-confidence, not their ability, which em- 
powered them to injure us. 

Owing entirely to the goodness of God, we never yet endured the yoke 
of a real government. We have, indeed, had people at "Washington and 
elsewhere holding public offices. But what sort of people ? With a few 
illustrious escej)tions they have been bankrupt shoemakers, insolvent 
manufacturers, ruined grocers ; men who would have been bank-tellers, 
"but for the necessity of knowing how to count ; surgeons who could not 
be trusted to cut a corn ; lawyers who could not tell an indictment for 
murder from a writ of replevin ; preachers not able to preach, or even 
to spell. Real men betook themselves to real business, contemptuously 



leaving petty politicians to play their petty game, at salaries inferior to 
the wages of a second-rate salesman in a respectable jobbing-house. The 
consequences degraded every party, and may possibly ruin the country. 
Almost every example of desperate, incurable incapacity — the refuse 
and rinsings of business and of trade — the scum and the dregs of society 
were sluiced for years through the public offices into the managing com- 
mittees of the great political parties. Who then can wonder at the election 
of such Presidents as Harrison, and Tyler, and Polk, and Taylor, and 
Buchanan ? Who can be surprised that men of ordinary respectability 
prided themselves on having nothing to do with politics ? From the off- 
scourings of the public offices came our former leaders and tlieir tools, 
the present Breckinridge gang. Under various names they have played 
at government for us during many years, and what they do not know 
about ruining a party or a country is hardly worth considering ! 

Up to the time that Buchanan broke with Douglas, these men had care- 
fully preserved their " standing " in our party. Up to that time " stand- 
ing" in the party had supplied the want of common sense, the want of 
ordinary good manners, the want of any trade or profession by which an 
honest living is commonly earned, — the want of a fiiir knowledge of the 
English language, and even the Avant of average cleanliness and sobriety 
to many men of considerable political importance. While we had peace 
they were tolerated. But we always found reason to complain of our 
indulgence. Situated as we are on this continent, we require genuine 
Democracy, as much as we require food and clothes. Yet genuine De- 
mocracy no more resembles the Democracy these men made us put up 
with, than beefsteak resembles offiil, or than broadcloth resembles shoddy. 
The Democracy we began w^th was genuine. It worked with a will for the 
greatest good of the greatest number. The Democracy we have had to 
put up with displayed a " masterly inactivity " whenever a common man 
was to be benefited, but worked with all the energy of delirium in the 
interest of any mongrel who had been suckled by a negress ! The De- 
mocracy we began with enlightened the thought of Jefferson, and throbbed 
in the heart of Jackson. The Democracy we had to put up with originated 
in the intellect of Mr. Calhoun, and exasperates the bile of Mr. Jeffer- 
son Davis! 

This kind of Democracy produced the whole Abolition Agitation, and 
handled it from the very beginning with a. savage stupidity. Gangs of 
dyspeptical males and deranged females perambulated the Commonwealth, 
telling the truth in a crazy way about the wrongs of the negro. A states- 
man would have let them alone. A humane man might have successfully 
encountered them Avith argument or with physic. But the leaders of both 
political parties preferred to employ violence and abuse. That happened 
then which always must happen. A strong band of sympathizers sprang 
up around the persecuted maniacs. The more they were outraged, the 
stronger they grew. Mr. Garrison became the Moses, and Mr. Phillips 
the Aaron, of a New Dispensation. The first persecutors — the Whig 
party — were torn to pieces in about fourteen years.- Mr. Phillips and 
Mr. Calhoun rejoiced equally at the downfall of the great Constitutional 
opposition. And the latter feasted his dying eyes upon the deep public 
humiliation of their greatest man, — a humiliation which Mr. Webster- 



voluntarily brought upon himself from the very first moment that he lifted 
his finger to put clown freedom of speech by force !. 

Our Democratic politicians could, even then, have grasped political 
power. Fourteen years of shuffling, canting, and lying, in competition 
with the Whig party, would have been forgiven them. One year's honest 
work, while the Whigs were killing themselves, — one vigorous assertion 
of our own fundamental principles would have balanced accounts, and 
given us the control of the State, — yes, of the nation, for fifty years 
more. But no. Honesty paid by and by. Mr. Calhoun paid in votes noAV, 
— and they, too, preferred to play the game of IMr. Calhoun. He was the 
deadliest /oe Democracy had yet seen in America. These gentlemen 
thought he was only a politician like themselves. Men not fit to dust 
his books aff*ected to sneer at his " abstractions." '' Practical" men com- 
placently undertook to " manage " him ; and they did manage him, as 
sheep manage the drover. Fools of another description undertook to 
separate, for adoption, the inevitably connected propositions of a mind so 
far-reaching, as to be able to measure every thing but its own contempt 
for them. Whole capitols full of such creatures as are commonly to be 
found in politics, were as cattle before that satanical energy, subtlety, and 
vindictiveness which ci'eated, almost out of nothing, the whole world of 
discord in which we now curse his memory. General Jackson was one of 
the men who saw through him ; and, as the Old Hero was not able to 
fear him, he sagaciously and patriotically hated him to the last, — him 
and his principles, and his friends, and every thing that was his. On his 
death-bed he regretted that he did not have him hung. Events have vin- 
dicated his sagacity, and have brought twenty millions of people to join 
in his regret. 

This great, bad man, wanted to ruin the Democratic party and to di- 
vide the nation. To do thi. an " issue," that is, in the flash language of 
political thieves, something to contend about was wanted. The tariff had 
been exhausted and would not answer. Slavery, he thought, would. He 
accordingly commenced the political agitation of the slave question. He 
w^ould have agitated the mule question just as soon, if it had coincided 
with geographical lines. And he could have united the South upon the 
mule question just as well as upon the slave question, if he could have 
received the same help on it from those northern idiots whose subserv- 
iency continually encouraged him in the " fatal exercise of domineering 
talk." 

He infused into the discussion of the slavery question all the malig- 
nity which it has ever hdd. He set the fashion of calling the slave breeders 
the " South." He originated the lie that Ihe "North " wanted to inter- 
fere with the blessed " institution " in the Breeding States. He began to 
make war upon the right of petition. He began to rob the mails. He 
began to educate the rising generation of amalgamationists into con- 
tempt and hatred for free society ; and above all, and before all, he under- 
took to put a stop forcibly to " agitation," that is, to talking about slavery 
in the free States. And our pig-headed politicians, unwarned by the im- 
pending ruin of the Whigs, swam at his bidding down that swiftly flow- 
ing stream of perdition, cutting their throats as they swam. For free 
is the life blood of free States and the life breath of freemen. And 



to freemen no greater outrage can be offered than a command, bv an un- 
authorized person, to talk, or to stop talking about any thing whatever. 
Such an order, whether proceeding from a Calhoun or a Burnside, might 
possibly justify killing. And surely it will be acknowledged that when 
language of that character is used without authority by anybody, the great- 
est exertion of self-respect is required to keep you from spitting in his 
face. 

_ These deep and sacred feelings it was the desire of Mr. Calhoun to ex- 
cite and then to outrage. Naturally arrogant, for this purpose his arro- 
gance was calculated. He saw the effect of it well. So did General 
Jackson. So did William Leggett. So did Edward Livingston. So did 
all honest and intelligent men who noticed his movements, or who attended 
to politics in any way. Butit is the curse of our party that its honest men 
have not always been intelligent, and that its intelligent men have not al- 
ways been honest. Our leaders have not always understood their own 
interest even when they thought of nothing else. With sense enough to 
understand their own principles, or with principle enough to stand by the 
dictates of ordinary common sense, they could have turned the feeling 
of the State against Mr. Calhoun alone. By what they called " a dis° 
criminating support," — that is, by taking sides with him, they drew it 
upon themselves. "Adversity," says the proverb, "teaches a wise man, 
but it exasperates a fool." ' It certainly exasperated the managers of the 
Democratic party. They cursed, with much dignity, the fanaticism of 
Massachusetts. They turned their backs upon the State House in order to 
grasp the Custom House, and let the State go by default. They had enough 
followers left, however, to go throuj^h the forms of an election, and once 
under very favorable circumstances elected a governor by one vote. But 
the Fugitive Slave Bill was executed in Boston. The only Democrat in 
Massachusetts whose intellect, education, and courage placed him by the 
side of Silas Wright, was turned away from the National Convention, be- 
cause he believed that bill unconstitutional, and would say so. Then, 
indeed, the downfall of the party was headlong ! It required steadiness 
of mind and devotion to principle of no ordinary kind to be a Democrat 
in those evil days ! Men left by scores and by hundreds who had been 
the life of the party. A few of the more stubborn remained, disgusted 
with their associates, but unable to change their own minds, and hoping 
for their old friends a restoration of sense with a return of sobriety. But 
nothing could open the eyes of the leading men — not even a general 
desertion. At last you found yourself in a social dilemma. Everybody 
you liked, everybody you respected, everybody whose good opinion was 
worth having, all your personal friends, all your every-day associates, 
were on the other side ! Your political associates you were ashamed to 
be seen with in the street. With the exception of a few, including the 
" Marshal's Guard," the working Democrats were mostly to be found when 
wanted either at the Custom House or the House of Correction. The 
whole party grew very small so very soon that its leaders were charged 
with making it so on purpose. I cheerfully acquit them of that design or 
of any other. The party could not help growing conveniently and even 
inconveniently small, when its whole duty and sole test was to " damn a 
nigger ! " I think it lucky for the shoe business that these leading minds 



did not apply their energies to that. If they had, they would have broken 
up every shoe shop in the United States in a year. 

In the hist presidential election, unable to endure them any longer, we 
broke with them, as I supposed, forever. We had separate conventions, 
separate committees, separate tickets. They repaid our revolt with bit- 
ter hatred. They struck hands with Yancey and with Davis, and with 
that most ungrateful son of Kentucky, J. C. Breckinridge, to kill Senator 
Douglas and to break up the party. They did ruin it. They did kill 
bim. Yet even then — such is the force of association, and such our 
stubborn fidelity — that excuses were made for them, until they openly 
abandoned the honored name of Democrat, as if it was not good enough, 
and called themselves " National." Then, indeed, all eyes were opened. 
The mean, unprincipled, narrow-minded, ignorant, arrogant set, were 
seen as they are. by the thousands who had followed them so long. They 
were followed no more. Nobody can stand a turncoat. 

These gentlemen now desire to resume the name of Democrat, and have 
actually been defeated under it in several States already. And they as- 
sembled in great force in our late convention to give the finishing stroke 
to the party here. 

To that resumption I object. If their own words, describing their own 
position, are to be depended on, they are not Democrats at all. I am. I 
can truly affirm that " Democrat " is my proper and only political name. 
I did not take it upon myself. It was imposed upon me long before I was 
old enough to know what it meant. Since I became capable of under- 
standing its significance, and of assenting to its application, I have borne 
it, I hope, honorably. I never abandoned it for the name of '' National," 
or " Union," or " People's," or any other, no matter how sounding. And 
I would like, with your assistance, to have the use of it confined to those 
of us who have never desertqd or betrayed it. And I have a right to 
complain, that while Mr. Breckinridge and four hundred thousand of his 
party are murdering their fellow-citizens in Virginia, some hundreds of 
them make use of my party name, while robbing orphan asylums and 
roasting negroes in New York. 

On this point (if the newspapers report him accurately), I have the 
misfortune to differ with the Honorable Fernando Wood. He thinks that 
no Democrat can support a war against South Carolina in rebellion. Mr. 
Calhoun thought so too. General Jackson, on the contrary, intended to 
hang Mr. Calhoun the moment he attempted to put Mr. Wood's thought 
into practice. The General's intention to execute a rebel may yet be 
carried out by some of his party, though upon a difi'erent person, — in 
corpore vili, as they say. And if Mp. Wood should happen to be that 
person, his efforts to overtake the hangman have been so strenuous, so in- 
defatigable, and so meritorious, that it is impossible not to wish him the 
fullest success. 

These gentlemen deserve no favors, and in the convention they got very 
few. But they are entitled to justice, and justice requires that we should 
not charge them with treason, or with any other offence, until they com- 
mit it. What they do can be accounted for much more accurately, by 
attributing it to the force of their two great characteristics : I mean to 
stupidity and to cupidity. Stupidity is the normal condition to which 
small office-holding speedily reduces the small office-seeking mind. Cu- 



pidity is the impulse which sets it in motion. But for tlie first they would 
have had knowledge of means ; but for the second they would have had 
a will to use them. By means of both they have nearly ruined us, and 
have, it is to be hoped, finally extinguished themselves. 

Where we gain immensely is in our deliberate selection of gentlemen 
for candidates instead of politicians. We clear by that one transaction 
the whole vast difference between men who exhaust t-heir ability in ob- 
taining office, and men who are qualified to fill it. Even the bar-room 
and the corner grocery will have no objection to that. Even the bar-room 
and the corner grocery prefer the language of a gentleman expressing his 
opinions, to the verbiage of a politician straining his small wits in the pur- 
suit of an " issue." And it will be our interest, as well as our pleasure, 
to gratify that proper and natural taste, by selecting no candidate unwor- 
thy to be associated with Theodore H. Sweetser or Henry AV. Paine. 

In view of the great and unhoped-for change from politicians to gen- 
tlemen, and from senseless servility to decent self-respect, there are some 
opinions which we can now weed out of the party. And first, as to the 
opinion that slavery can be restored or defended by us. This opinion is 
often concealed under the phrase of the " Union as it was" a phrase 
Avhich has the disadvantage of acknowledging by implication the fact, if 
not the right, of secession. 

M. Guizot, in his " Embassy," remarks with his usual wisdom how hard 
it is even for men of powerful and cultivated intellect to communicate their 
thoughts fully to each other. Each man is intensely occupied with his 
own. For the average of mankind this difficulty is enormously increased. 
But the shock of war electrifies the whole nation, fires the heart, kindles 
the intellect, and sweeps away whole mountains of absurdity in its deluge 
of blood and tears. Slavery, for example, long maintained because peo- 
ple would not hear each othtr, is now adrift on the torrent of war, tumb- 
ling and melting like an iceberg in the Gulf stream. If it is " Divine," 
as Mr. Corry says it is, then the Devil must be Omnipotent. Let him 
save it, if he is ! Man can evidently do very little for it now. It is " de- 
moralized " wherever the armies go. And if perfect tranquillity should 
suddenly prevail to-morrow, it would cost ten thousand times more to re- 
establish its outworks than it would to eradicate its remains. However it 
is treated, or whatever may be done for it or against it, it will crumble 
away and leave the philanthropical fool and the political fool gazing 
across the vacuity into each other's empty heads, the one bereft of his 
" mission," and the other of his " issue." 

Let me justify the contempt I have for the understanding of those men 
by calling public attention to the following facts : 

For thirty years the professional philanthropists have said this : 

" The blacks are so barbarously treated that some day they will rise 
upon their masters." 

In opposition to them the political menials of the Breeding Interest 
have said this : 

" The blacks are so exasperated by abolition incendiaries that some 
day they will renew in the South the horrors of St. Domingo." 

The first assertion is an abolition absurdity. The next one is a Cal- 
houuite invention. Both of them are seen to be entirely unfounded. No 



8 

insurrection has been heard of among the blacks. No men ever behaved 
better than they. The huxtering politician and the " professional philan- 
thropist" are themselves the slaves of a word. They talk about the 
. negro of to-day, and think all the while about the bloody African savage, 
his ancestor of two hundred years ago ! They forget that the American 
negro has five generations of civilization behind him, — that he is one of 
the family, and has less inclination to throat-cutting than his master. 
Besides, he has been brought up to see white men fight, and to let them 
alone. Now, the first assertion has been the pretence for much unskilful 
meddling. The second has been an excuse for much intolerable bullying. 
And the event shows that neither the meddler nor the bully knows how 
to reason or is fit to be trusted with political power. 

Another opinion steadily insisted on by the whole Breckinridge party 
is, that the North has broken a constitutional compromise relating to 
slavery, while the South kept its faith. This opinion is sometimes, 
though not always, concealed under the phrase of the " Constitution as 
it is." 

When a Whig uses this phrase, he commonly means that he does not 
wish the Constitution amended. The ex-Democrat means what I have 
told you. In his mouth it is a plain fabrication. The North has never 
broken any compromise of the Constitution. The ex-Democrat knows 
that the Fugitive Slave Bill was a congressional, not a constitutional, com- 
promise. He knows as well as we do that it was not half so sacred a 
compromise as the Tenth Amendment which was broken in order to pass 
it. He knows by his own principles that the independent and sovereign 
State of Massachusetts had as much right to pass Personal Liberty Bills 
and imprison man-thieves, as the independent and sovereign State of 
South Carolina had to pass Personal Slavery Bills, and sell our colored 
citizens. We were all slave States when tile Constitution was adopted. 
There was no division about slavery then. All thought alike of it who 
thought of it all, and very few thought any thing about it. The Com- 
promises, so much better known than the instrument supposed to contain 
them, were not about slavery at all, except in the most incidental manner. 
They were made about taxes and commerce and votes ; and the planters 
gave up two-fifths of their votes to save taxes, not slavery. The whole 
gibberish about the constitutional guaranties of slavery is an afterthought. 
Slavery was /from the first expected to die, not to grow. This was the 
original understanding. This was the contemporaneous exposition. To 
be sure, we do not look outside of an instrument for its exposition. But 
the ex-Democrat does — and to him that is a reply. To that original 
understanding the North adheres. But slavery has grown, instead of 
dying, and the South meanly take advantage of the unexpected growth, 
for the sake of political power. In fact, they have always broken the 
Constitution, whenever they thought it for their interest to break it. 
They broke it to acquire Louisiana. They broke it to war upon Mexico. 
They broke it to steal Texas. They broke it to steal California. They 
broke it to pass the Fugitive Slave Bill, against the rights of the States ; 
and the difference between them and us is, that they manfully acknowl- 
edged the breach, and we, as a party, pusillanimously whined over it, after 
helping them to do it, and after extracting all the profit out of it we pos- 



sibly could ! Now they deny their own boast, and say they never broke 
it at all ! And the mean whites of the North, as usual, swear in the 
words of their masters. 

I wish it distinctly understood, that I do not blame the South for break- 
ing the Constitution. I blame them only for denying that they broke it. 
In my opinion a free people, in time of difficulty, can dispense with their 
Constitution, just as a man can hold his breath when he wants to dive. 
Mr. Seward abandons the Constitution when he pleases for what he calls 
the Higher Law. Since I knew how to read, I have had the honor of 
despising Mr. Seward for his want of comprehension. I do not believe in 
the Higher Law, because the individual conscience, on which it is founded, 
may be ignorant or fanaticized ; that is, insane. But I do believe in the 
Highest Laio, which is the public safety, — " Solus populi summa lex." 

It has been the fashion for a long time to talk about Yankee impudence, 
Yankee cheating, even in New England. And the people of New Eng- 
land — the best natured people on the face of the earth — have laughed 
at it, and let it go. But the outrageous impudence of the lie that we had 
broken our faith, and that the pious South had kept theirs, induced me to 
investigate their claims to several things, and among other thin|| to the 
reputation of honor and the title of gentlemen. If the title of gentlemen 
springs from birth, the fountain of Southern aristocracy ought not to ooze 
as it does from the sewerage of Newgate, and the drainage of the Hulks. 
If it springs from wealth, they ought to pay, and not repudiate their debts. 
If it springs from good education and good manners, they should not form 
theirs, as they do, upon negro public opinion. For love of approbation finds 
its food in unsuspected quarters. And when a man, living on a plantation, 
finds that his negroes mistake the strut of a cock-turkey for the manners 
of a gentleman, he will adopt it unconsciously, just as he learns from them 
to say do-ah instead of door, and Jio-ah instead of floor. And if it springs 
from good morals, they ought to give up the practice of amalgamation. 
And lastly, if they are men of honor, why did they go into an election 
and vote, and refuse to abide by the result when they lost? It is exactly 
like playing a game of cards, and refusing to pay the losses, — conduct 
which may be respectable enough for Southern politicians, but which, in 
less chivalrous countries, would bring blushes even to the brow of a black- 
leg ! Here, again, we have lived under the tyranny of words. When we 
talked of a " Southern gentleman," we thought of the grand figure of 
George Washington, with the hair-powder, knee-buckles, and queue of 
Provincial history. But that race of men is as rare as the knee-buckles 
and the hair-powder they dressed themselves with. They are replaced 
by another kind. The theatrical Yankee — the man with the white hat, 
striped vest and trowsers, with straps half way up to his knees — is not 
to be found in New England off the stage. The wave of education, free- 
dom, and light struck New England first, and swept them before it into 
the negro States. The perfidious, lying, cheating, snuffling, whining, 
canting, bragging, tobacco-spitting population overflow the South, and — 
men and women — are as filthy a people as ever chewed snuff! W. H. 
Russell, who is certainly not blind, found in Jefferson Davis all the char- 
acteristics usually ascribed to a Yankee. He might have expected to find 
them, if he had known that Jefferson Davis was a " mean white ; " — that 



10 

» 

is a Yankee of ninety years ago, kept from advancing on the road to pros- 
perity because he would carry a heavy negro on his back ! 

What are we^to beUeve from such a people ? Every statement they 
make turns out, upon examination, to be a downright imposition. They 
appeal, for instance, to me, as a State-Rights Democrat — a strict con- 
structionist at that — and ask me, through their friends in the convention 
and everywhere else, " Don't you think our ' rights ' were endangered by 
a Republican Administration ? " In answer, I want to know if that is any 
excuse for making war upon me ? I turn to the record. I find that, as 
a party, we never interfered against slavery in the Southern States ; 
that, on the contrary, we abandoned our fundamental principles to please 
the owners ; that even after Lincoln's election we were ready, as a party, 
to help the Representatives and Senators of Southern States against any 
attack upon property in slaves ; that they knew these things perfectly 
well, and understood, from experience and observation, how much we 
were disposed to aid and to befriend them ; that if they had remained at 
their posts, particularly in the Senate, we could have prevented the 
Administration from moving hand or foot without our consent. That, 
notwithstanding all these things, they basely deserted us, their friends. 
They treacherously left us defenceless to our pohtical enemies. They 
meanly picked our pockets before they left us, and wound up by trying 
to cut our throats, — an attempt they still keep up. I, therefore, am 
compelled to say to them, that if the stream of events should bear us on 
so far, I shall behold, with much resignation, the corpse of the last rebel 
hanging in the chains of the last slave. And for his own sake, as well as 
mine, I shall rejoice to see the man of the South promoted to the plough, 
and his wife exalted to the wash-tub. He will then understand practical 
Democracy, and will better appreciate the dignity of labor when he per- 
forms it himself. 

I have dwelt upon the twaddle of our ward and county politicians, not 
because it is worth the trouble I have expended on it, but out of abundant 
caution ; because an enemy should never be merely despised. Their de- 
feat in our convention can be followed up throughout the Commonwealth 
hy supporting the government. They whine about this " cruel war." Let 
us execrate this mean rebellion. They say they long for peace. Let 
them then advise their Southern friends to stop fighting. They say tliey 
cannot fight for the negro. Let them fight to put down the rebellion. 
They do not like political arrests, suspension of the habeas corpus, the 
proclamation, &c., beginning with the first act of the Administration and 
closing with the last. Neither do I, but I cannot stop to find fault now. 
Now is the time to work — not to grumble. Let me then respectfully ask 
you to join me in giving to the President of the United States an unquali- 
fied support. The Democratic party always supports the government in 
time of war. Lieutenant Riordon, of Lee, expressed your sentiments and 
mine in the convention better than I can, because of the mute eloquence 
of that empty sleeve. He said, " We must support the government, and 
when the next presidential election comes, if I think the government is 
wrong, I, as a Democrat, will support a Democrat for the administration 
then." So will I. In the mean time I will support the government ac- 
tively and without conditions. 



11 

Let us take a lesson from the history of our own State. In 1812 New 
England set up the standard of secession. A convention sat to thwart the 
Government. The press and pulpit thundered against those who in the 
hour of need would help the country. In Boston there were associations 
to prevent the filling up of Government loans. People were ohliged to 
subscribe in secret as if it was dishonest. At 'the same time immense runs 
were made by the Boston banks on those of the Central and Southern 
States. The specie thus drained was sent to Canada to pay for smuggled 
goods, and British Government bills were drawn at Quebec and disposed 
of in great numbers on advantageous terms to moneyed men here. But 
at last came the day of reckoning. The Federalists awoke from their de- 
lirium of factious intoxication, and found themselves covered with con- 
tempt and shame. Their country had been in danger, and they had 
gloried in her distress. She had exposed herself to privations from which 
they had extracted profit. In her triumph they had no part except that 
of having mourned over and depreciated them. They were never heai'd 
of more. They sunk into well-merited oblivion. As they are now, so 
may all who imitate them be ! So perish all the enemies of America ! 
Respectfully your fellow-citizen, 

A JACKSONIAN DEMOCRAT. 



HIGHIiY IMPORTANT. 

LET THE AFFLICTED READ!!! 

Aud knoAv of the astonishing efficacy of this 
GREAT' HUMOR REMEDY! 



HOWARD'S 
VEGETABLE CANCER AND CANKER SYRUP. 



In this preparation the public are offered the most powerful remedy extant. 

It has cured CANCERS after the patients have been given up as incurable by 
many physicians. 

It has cured CANKER in its worst forms in hundreds of cases. 

It has always cured SALT RHEUM when a trial has been given it, a disease 
that every one knows is very troublesome, and exceedingly difficult to cure. 

ERYSIPELAS always yields to its power, as many who have experienced its 
benefits do testify. 

It has cured SCROFULA in hundreds of cases, many of the most aggravated 
character. 

It cuxQs KING'S EVIL. 

It has cured many cases of SCALD HEAD. 

TUMORS have been removed by it in repeated instances in which their removal 
has been pronounced impossible excepting by a surgical operation. 

ULCERS of the most malignant type have been healed by its use. 

It has cured many cases of NURSING SORE MOUTH, when all other remedies 
have foiled to benefit. 

FE VER SORES of the worst kind have been cured by it. 

SCURVY has been cured by it in every case in which it has been used, and they 
are many. 

It removes WHITE SWELLING with a certaintv no other medicine ever has. 

It speedily removes from the face all BLOTCHES, PIMPLES, &c., which 
though not very painful, perhaps, are extremely unpleasant to have. 

It has been used in EVERY KIND OF HUMOR, and never fails to benefit the 
patient. 

NEURALGIA, in its most distressing forms, has been cured by it when no other 
remedy could be found to meet the case. 

It has cured JAUNDICE in many severe cas'es. 

It has proved very efficacious in the treatment of PILES, an extremely painful 



DYSPEPSIA, which is often caused by humor, has been cured by it in many in- 
stances. 

In cases of GENERAL DEBILITY from whatever cause, the Syrup can be re- 
lied upon as a most efficient aid. 

It is a most certain cure for RICKETS, a disease common to children. 

Its efficacy in all diseases originating in a depraved state of the blood or other fluids 
of the body, is unsurpassed. 

Its effects upon the system are truly astonishing, and almost beyond belief in one 
who has not witnessed them. 

This Syrup will as certainly cure the diseases for which it is recommended as a 
trial is given it, and the cure will be permanent, as it by its wonderful searching power 
entirely eradicates the disease from the system. 

The afflicted have only to try it to become convinced of what we say in regard to it, 
and to find relief from their sufierings. 



Prepared by D. HOWARD, Randolph, Mass. Sold at the principal office, J. O. BOYLE & CO.'S, 
No. 8 State Street, Boston (formerly Redding & Co.'s), where the Dr. can be consulted free of charge, 
daily from 11 to 3 o'clock, and by all dealers in medicine. n $\ fi 







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